DORAL, Fla. — President Trump on Monday called the new Chinese AI platform DeepSeek a “wakeup call” for America — while also saying its debut could be a “positive” development if it actually works more cheaply than US competitors.
“I’ve been reading about China and some of the companies in China, one in particular, coming up with a faster method of AI and much less expensive method,” Trump, 78, said in an address to House Republicans.
“And that’s good because you don’t have to spend as much money. I view that as a positive, as an asset. So I really think — if it’s if it’s fact, and if it’s true, and nobody really knows what it is — but I view that as a positive, because you’ll be doing that too,” Trump said.
“So you won’t be spending as much, and you’ll get the same result hopefully. The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company, should be a wake up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing to win.”
Trump addressed the development after DeepSeek’s claims of cheaper AI caused the Nasdaq Composite to slip more than 3% Monday — as high-performance chipmaker Nvidia’s stock tanked almost 17%.
“I would say that’s a positive that could be very much a positive development. Instead of spending billions and billions, you’ll spend less than you come up with, hopefully, the same solution,” Trump said.
The Chinese company said it spent a paltry $5.6 million coming up with its AI — a drop in the bucket compared to the investment of leading US firms such as OpenAI and Meta — and claimed to use relatively inexpensive chips to do it.
The new offering instantly surged to be the top download on the Apple app store Monday.
The US has export controls imposed on critical Nvidia hardware going into China, which is why DeepSeek’s breakthrough was so unnerving to US investors.
Some have speculated that DeepSeek found workarounds to those export controls and actually spent far more than has been publicly claimed.
“My understanding is that DeepSeek has about 50,000 H100s, which they can’t talk about, obviously, because it is against the export controls that the United States has put in place,” Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang told CNBC last week.
Deportations for non-illegals too
During a riff about his efforts to end the border chaos and crack down on illegal immigration, Trump indicated that he would like to deport more than just illegal immigrants.
“We’re tracking down the illegal alien criminals,” Trump began. “We’re detaining them and we are throwing them the hell out of our country. We have no apologies and we’re moving forward very fast.”
“We also have many violent criminals in our country, however, that did not necessarily come here illegally but have been arrested 30 times, 35 times, 41, 42 times in a couple of cases, 25 times, 18 times 30 for murder [and] other heinous charges,” he added.
The president didn’t specify whether he was referring to immigrants who are living within the US legally, US citizens or both who have committed repeated criminal offenses.
“I don’t want these violent repeat offenders in our country any more than I want illegal aliens from other countries in,” he stressed.
Trump also hinted that he may try to get a change in policy to broaden out deportations beyond illegal immigrants.
“This is subject to getting it approved, but if they’ve been arrested many, many times [and] they’re repeat offenders by many numbers, I want them out of our country,” he caveated. “I also will be seeking permission to do so.”
“We’re going to get approval, hopefully, to get them the hell out of our country, along with others, let them be brought to a foreign land and maintained by others for a very small fee, as opposed to being maintained in our jails for massive amounts of money.”
Tariffs on chips, drugs and metals
Trump also touted his plans for far-reaching tariffs as part of his new economic strategy.
The president did not directly mention the status of his already-announced threat to slap 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods on Feb. 1 as a penalty for illegal immigration and drug-smuggling — while outlining new plans.
“In the very near future, we’re going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the United States of America,” Trump announced.
“They left us, and they went to Taiwan, which is about 98% of the chip business, by the way. And we want them to come back, and we don’t want to give them billions of dollars, like this ridiculous program that Biden has.”
“They didn’t need money. They needed an incentive,” Trump said.
“And the incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50, or even 100% tax. They’re going to build their factory with their own money. We don’t have to give them money.”
Trump added that “if you want to stop paying the taxes or the tariffs, you have to build your plant right here in America.”
Trump revealed further plans to tariff imports of metals — on top of existing tariffs on steel and aluminum from most countries, which he adopted during his first term.
“I’ll also be placing tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper and things that we need for our military,” Trump said.
Trump said he’d impose tariffs on countries for refusing to take back illegal immigrants — after over the weekend coercing Colombia to quickly accept deportation flights with similar threats.
“They’re going to take them back fast,” he said, “and if they don’t, they’ll pay a very high economic price, and we’re going to immediately install massive tariffs. It’ll be placed on them and other sanctions.”
